Shamelessness as a strategy (2019)
nadia.xyz229 points by wdaher 2 days ago
229 points by wdaher 2 days ago
This generally is a version of what economics and game theory knows as countersignalling. A classic paper is “Too Cool for School” https://host.kelley.iu.edu/riharbau/cs-randfinal.pdf
Always worth pondering when it works, and when, for whom, and how it fails.
Rory Sutherland had a good description of this:
"If you’re a top executive, turning up to work on a bicycle is a high-status activity because it was a choice and not a necessity. But if you work at Pizza Hut, turning up on a bike means you can’t afford a car."
Other examples include the clothes that Rory Sutherland wears during interviews, the ways that Rory Sutherland sits on chairs during interviews, and the ways that Rory Sutherland rambles over others during interviews.
Or the way that he got the guy that impersonates him on TikTok to announce his (Rory's) conference: https://www.linkedin.com/posts/mad-fest_this-isnt-a-course-i...
I'd argue that shamelessness and countersignalling are different things but share the same foundation: confidence.
Shamelessness is acting without embarrassment and countersignalling is deliberately downplaying because you're so confident you don't need to prove yourself.
Using the example from the article, another person who comes to mind besides Paris Hilton is Trump. He uses countersignalling as a strategic tool, and sloppiness as a Swiss knife. The followers of both Paris and Trump interpret that sloppiness as confidence and authenticity, which is why it's so effective. And to pull off being deliberately sloppy, you need to be shameless.
I don't think it is that deep for Trump. His sloppiness is great for the media because his choices lead to endless content. He is great for the unofficial media because everything he does is meme worthy. It is no wonder he and Musk teamed up, both their successes come from following the same strategy.
I remember reading about Nikocado Avocado and I found information that he graduated from art school or something and thought "Wait. He's just pretending to be an idiot in front of a camera because this makes money". I talked about this to a friend of mine, who dismissed me. Two weeks later he put a video about having lost all that weight.
I kind of agree with Nadia's analysis of what's happening, but it's a fucking cursed reality.
Here's hoping for a New New Sincerity to bring us back.
I didn't know this term but it really resonates. A general lack of seriousness in nearly everything is a defining aspect of our time, it seems.
Yea, this "lack of seriousness" really gets under my skin, and I really hope there's a broad cultural backlash to it soon, as this being the permanent culture seems toxic and exhausting.
That said, this is about the messaging aspect. Trump say could lack seriousness of rhetoric, but still be seriously pursuing his self-interests.
All for Post-postmodernism!!!
Have you seen Metamodernism?
There's an art scene and political movement:
Art (mostly): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metamodernism
Movement: https://metamoderna.org/metamodernism/
It's hard to unsee metamodern in movies once you see it. I did a 'self aware waldo' monologue in high school drama class, didn't realize it was meta modern.
Can you give me an example or two?
Not a movie, but according to the wiki article linked a little further up the book “A Visit From The Goon Squad” by Jennifer Egan has metamodern qualities, and I heartily recommend reading it. It’s fantastic. The section in the format of a PowerPoint presentation about her brother that one of the main character’s daughter gives at her school is incredibly beautiful. One of my top five experiences reading.
I’ve added the book to my queue, and if you’re so inclined I’d appreciate hearing what your other four are.
I didn't really have a firm top 5 in mind, I meant it more in the sense of "this was very memorable indeed".
But what the hell, it would be fun to reminisce some more.
Kind of cheating because the book is a classic, so this is just for the story: I was 15 years old in 1996, and we took a family vacation near Westhoek in Belgium. There's a nature reserve with sand dunes. I spent a few days lying in the sand dunes while reading "Dune" for the first time. This was at the same time that Hale-Bopp was visible in the night sky. It's still one of my favorite books just because of how visceral that reading experience was.
"Diaspora" by Greg Egan starts in 2975 when the majority of humans are disembodied computer programs running in simulated-reality communities. Originally, humans were uploaded/digitized but by this point, new digital consciousnesses come into being. The first chapter describes the "birth" of such a consciousness, and again, I found reading this to be a very visceral experience, and rather beautiful. Given that this was written in 1997, it is also surprisingly prescient of today's understanding of auto-encoders and how LLMs train.
"The Carpet Makers" ("Die Haarteppichknüpfer" in the original German) completely blew my mind as a teenager because of how the story was structured. It starts with a description of a family that - like many other families - is working on an elaborate carpet made from human hair, a carpet that it will take them an entire lifetime to complete. Then the book begins to zoom out and you learn more and more about the universe it is set in, but not in an annoying fashion where a curtain is being pulled back and the author feels very clever. Its unusual structure exposed me to the idea that Sci-Fi didn't have to be primarily about rockets, if done well, it could just be quite good literature that happens to be set in space and speculates about technology and it's sociological impact. Other works demonstrate that better, but this is the one that made me realize that.
And then finally, and from quite recently, my hands down favorite short story ever. And it's actually metamodern! First you'd need to have read "The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas" (https://shsdavisapes.pbworks.com/f/Omelas.pdf) by Ursula K. LeGuin, who is generally worth reading. In 2024, Isabel J. Kim wrote "Why Don't We Just Kill The Kid In The Omelas Hole" (https://clarkesworldmagazine.com/kim_02_24/), and it's great. I re-read it every now and then, and it chokes me up every time. The way the prose is a complete juxtaposition to the original story: rough, unpolished, conversational. It pulls no punches whatsoever, and bounces between humor and moral horror. 10/10, will read again, many times, whenever I happen to think of it.
Damn. That kid in Omelas story bites hard. Thank you! I wish it'd existed back when I used to teach the original.
A lot of modern movies are metamodern. The example on the Wikipedia is Bo Burnham's INSIDE, which is very metamodern. But I'd argue most movies are at least somewhat at this point self aware, fourth wall breaking commentary. Top Gun is an example of a modern movie - not metamodern, where there is diversity but it's not at all self aware, fourth wall breaking or commentary.
This video gives a good overview https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5xEi8qg266g
Thank you. That's really good.
I'd say in response that he's missing (or, at least, gestures towards but doesn't explore) an element of post-modernism - at least in literary criticism, which I know more about than specifically film - which is that it's inherently a critique of power relationships. The key post-modern observation is that all narratives are deliberately constructed - in other words, someone chooses what to include and what to leave out - so Who tells a story, and Why they tell that story in that particular way, in order to advance What view of the world is instrinsic to understanding them.
Maybe we - artists, critics, and audiences alike - are generally exhausted by that right now. Politics are particularly fraught, and decades of post-modern art and thought certainly can't claim to have advanced utopia, so what we're calling meta-modernism is certainly a response, but it's closer to (my generation's rallying cry) "whatever, man", than it is advancing a solution to anything we see ailing the world at the moment.
As someone not familiar with the term, I don't really understand the concept, and Wikipedia's definition doesn't look specific enough:
> generally describes creative works that expand upon and break away from concepts of postmodernist irony and cynicism.
That basically refers to anything that is not irony and cynicism, isn't it?
Like anything in culture and art, its opaque if you dont know the context, because its all a long conversation where everything is a repsonse to something before. This i feel is a response to how irony and cynicism (which were responses to dogmatic cult like obedience) get tiring and at some point people want sincerity rather than just poking fun at thing
You know how people now hate the "umm that just happened" style of comedy writing? Its basically thay backlash. People dont want quippy remarks and tearing things down, they was genuine appreciation for things
I feel if we think about it more it might have a relarion to shamelessness. But im not so sure. Shamelessness seems to be opposite of cynicism by itself
Well said, and I really like the idea of shamelessness being in relation to earnestness and cynicism.
A lot of times the earnest promotion of an authentic belief can still come off as shameless, but the audience often still finds that mostly endearing if still cringe.
However, I feel like the "as a strategy" part of the title implies that it is not just shameless, but also mainly a cynical strategy - as in "having no shame about lying", not just " having no shame about my authentic special interest".
It's not shamelessness, it's authenticity. In today's curated, hyperreal society people desperately crave imperfections, cracks in the armour, they want something real, something human. They desire vulnerability, in part because it gives them courage to also be vulnerable, to not be afraid of judgement and rejection, and the freedom to be themselves.
And I think it's actionable advice for all of us. Be genuine, be vulnerable, and don't be afraid to be your true self. People like that.
Let's take an example: people who play music/video aloud on public transport.
In Ye Olden Days of the last century, this would be a shameful act, and people would be shamed for doing it.
In our enlightened modern times, people don't give a shit, and trying to shame them into not doing it is pointless. They are shameless about their selfishness, and apparently that's OK now.
With the result, as others have said, that we end up in the worst box on the Prisoner's Dilemma choices: we all have to put with other people's shitty taste in music and no-one gets any peace and quiet.
I don't get how we write this up as "authenticity" without also concluding that these people authentically have no consideration for the other people around them, and are therefore bad people. I certainly do not want these people to be authentic around me, I would very much like them to have some shame and maintain a considerate front, even if that's not their true nature.
> people who play music/video aloud on public transport
But that's not being authentic, that's being plain rude, and there should be a difference.
You can be authentic and still respect boundaries and be considerate towards other people.
And on the other side, if being rude is your form of authenticity, then you're not authentic, you're just another rude person, probably following a specific type of common behaviour.
> You can be authentic and still respect boundaries and be considerate towards other people.
From the point of view of the douche: why should they do that, for what gain? I suppose if they care about social cohesion they'd care, but on the flip side, people nowadays can seem to violate social norms and still get through life just fine, in the old days they might suffer if society shunned them.
Makes me think of the cafe sign that listed prices: "Coffee $5; A coffee please: $3; Good day, I would like a coffee please: $1", being pleasant helps when doing business as well, people will even avoid doing business with you if you're unpleasant (except maybe if your soup is really really good). Maybe the "loneliness epidemic" means that people are developing a tolerance to the unavailability of pleasant social interactions.
Now it makes me think maybe the Black Mirror social scoring ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EcspUD0kF7g ) is a useful way to punish douches after all.
The problem with shame is that the people who use shame as a tool do not understand how to use it conservatively.
You see, they shame for playing music in public. Okay, great.
But they also shame for your weight, your sexuality, the color of your skin. Your job, your hobbies, your family. Your clothing, your skin, your hair.
And now, shame, as a tool, has been worn down to its bones. Of course then society at large begins to reject it.
Yeah, agree. It has been overused, and it's good that that doesn't work any more. I'd like the line to be drawn just a little further back, though, please ;)
70–90% of people have functional object impermanence, and at least 50% have no inner dialogue
no self awareness, no reflection. just impulse. me, me, me.
blasting music in public, talking at max volume, slamming doors. taking 20 mins to use an ATM when it takes me 30 seconds. and so on.
> at least 50% have no inner dialogue
I'm not sure I trust this. A quick search finds a Psychology Today article about it along with a single reference. I lazily suspect the result is based on some type of questionnaire.
The way "chain of thought" is used in LLMs to improve reasoning demonstrates, to me at least, the value of capturing intermediate steps in some rich compressed structure. Nothing beats that than words and sentences (see them or hear them). A lot of ideas can't be captured with just photos alone imho.
A master Buddhist meditator deep in meditation might also have no inner dialogue.
I don’t really get the significance of this No Inner Dialogue meme.
Authenticity doesn't mean you act in a way that the majority approves of, in fact it's often the opposite case. It also doesn't make any presuppositions about the morality of specific behaviour. To be authentic is to be your true self, despite what others think which requires bravery and that is something people admire. If something is considered shameful is a subjective judgement about behaviours that may or may not be authentic.
In fact, people who act authentically are often liked not despite of but because of their flaws. To be human is to be flawed, we're all guilty. And it turns out a lot of people crave permission to not be perfect.
My point is that your definition of "authenticity" seems to include behaviour that is plain inconsiderate of other people.
I think there's a line there. You can wear what you like, think what you like, speak how you like, but only behave how you like up to the point where your behaviour negatively affects other people. If you want to listen to shit music in your own home, you do you, that's fine. But inflicting it on everyone else in a train carriage is not "being authentic" it's "being an asshole". You're not expressing your true self in a brave way that should be admired. You're annoying everyone around you by being selfish. It's a huge difference.
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I don't think you understood the point of the comment you replied to. It was two-fold: what authentic means, and why people prefer imperfect people to be authentic than present a false image. Even your disrespectful response shows its value: you can get feedback that might actually help you improve.
Unfortunately everyone mocked Karens who at least were a force for good in enforcing social norms and etiquette.
Karens got mocked because busybody and entitled types expecting trying to enforce various sorts of compliance upon other people in ways far beyond what is reasonable is such a common occurrence and annoys so many people that mocking them resonates. Same reason you'll never see a standup comedian who doesn't mock intimate relationships somehow.
> trying to shame them into not doing it is pointless.
Speak for yourself, its at least satisfying. Insult their choice of music and provide suggestions for what they should play instead.
It gets tiring. I'm willing to fight a certain amount for some kind of social norms that respect other people. But honestly, if every bus trip needs to turn into a confrontation, it gets old fast.
The music thing is, I think, a related phenomenon I'll call the demolition man effect. Most people now are so weak and nonconfrontational that someone willing to break social norms can just walk all over them. This is because nobody wants to stand up for themselves or more fundamentally rock the boat.
The shamelessness thing is similar but fundamentally different in that it gets a following. Everyone thinks the kid/boomer without headphones is an ass, they just don't say it.
>Let's take an example: people who play music/video aloud on public transport.
>In Ye Olden Days of the last century, this would be a shameful act, and people would be shamed for doing it.
Your equivalent ilk of decades past complained about "kids these days" and their boomboxes in public in basically the same way you're doing now.
It's not one guy with a boombox now, it's 7 people with TikTok open on their phones.
It's not kids - if it was then sure, I could write this off as "kids these days". But it's all sorts, all ages, all cultures. Obviously some folks always wanted to do this.
No, it's shamelessness.
Shame exists to keep us from engaging in antisocial behavior.
If your true self is a liar, a cheat, a cruel person, then you should absolutely be afraid to be your true self.
That's still authenticity though. What's not authentic is people who conceal those aspects of themselves, and it's also far more dangerous.
I authentically believe that when I'm angry, I should avoid talking to people in that state, because the me who's seeing things through anger is not a more authentic me than a drunk me would. That said, if you're a liar and conceal that? Yeah worse than being one all the time.
Authenticity can be good, bad, mixed bag, if someone is in reality a liar and decide to be so? Authentically hope they keep themselves away from me.
In this paradigm you describe, should we then strive to be authentic or should we refrain?
Don't you think this would open the doors to an endless amount of bad behaviours?
Yes.
No.
What if my authentic feeling and behaviour was to slap you in the face and laugh at you because you answered 'Yes.' to an 'either/or' question?
The problem is that for humanity, unrestrained behaviour will very quickly degrade into horrible things. There's scientific evidence for that, if everyday life is not proof enough for you.
What is ones "authentic" self is an illusion. Playing loud crap music on the public transport is not "my authentic self", it is an impulse that I should perhaps just suppress instead.
Referring to an "autentic self" does not excuse all kinds of behavior. There exists expressions of some kind of authentic self, sure, but so many things people do are just carelessness or disregard and not actually important to who they are.
It's a very specific form of authenticity. It's the authenticity of people who don't make an effort, who don't feel any need to try, who know that people are going to accept them and look up to them no matter how shitty they are.
But for regular people it's a fantasy. Because it only works if you're rich.
What a weird viewpoint.
> But for regular people it's a fantasy
So for authentic people it's a fantasy???
I can only imagine that either
(a) you struggle to differentiate fake authenticity from authentic fakeness
or (b) perhaps you don't have enough authentic non-wealthy acquaintances.
Some welloff people countersignal successfully. But many don't because status signaling is difficult (evolutionarily).
> it only works if you're rich
And you imply that you think that people look up to the rich - however many people don't - perhaps that says something about your own pretensions?
Disclaimer: I'm a well off geek - definitely not rich and I'm rather poor at recognizing or playing status games.
> fake authenticity from authentic fakeness
I'm curious what you mean by these, I have an idea but I don't want to misconstrue you.
I think you're confusing authenticity with DGAF, because they both look like the opposite of insecurity.
Trump and Hilton play a DGAF role on TV, but the very fact that they're putting in the effort means that it isn't authentically them. If they really didn't care, we wouldn't know their names, because being wealthy doesn't automatically make you a celebrity. Consider Michael Bloomberg, who briefly flirted with a presidential run, but then discovered that coming from legit middle class roots and achieving orders of magnitude more wealth than Donald Trump meant very little next to the decades of work Trump had put in to build his celebrity status.
As celebrities, they have embraced caring about what people as their job, and for them, part of that job is playing out the ordinary person's fantasy of not having to care what people think -- a role that is only authentically them in the sense that they learned it authentically as spoiled rich children.
A lot of people experience anxiety in their everyday lives over how other people will perceive them. "Did I do a good enough job? What are people saying about me? What do people actually think about me?" When Trump and Hilton ostentatiously act out being able to be dumb and inept and still being treated like they're amazing, it's the perfect inverse of what causes ordinary people anxiety, which makes it a perfect fantasy.
>It's the authenticity of people who don't make an effort, who don't feel any need to try, who know that people are going to accept them and look up to them no matter how shitty they are.
Or they know other people won't accept them regardless and they don't care.
It's one of those communication patterns you see at the top and the bottom and if your life consists of working in an office, living in a condo and golfing on the weekends you'll basically never run across anyone that does it.
Pretending not to care what other people think is the least authentic thing imaginable. Everyone knows that the people obsess about not giving a fuck are the people who are deeply unhappy with how they're perceived and are fantasizing about a fix.
For secure people, caring what other people think doesn't have to mean being neurotic and miserable about it. It doesn't mean being so cringe that you lose people's respect.
Imagine caring what other people think and not being miserable because of it.
Imagine caring what other people think, and they respect you more for it instead of less.
Top performers care deeply about the opinions of people who matter. CEOs in particular obsess about it. If a CEO acted like your opinion didn't matter, they were probably right, and they were probably too busy thinking about the board and the COO who was angling for an eventual interim job to give you the time of day.
Plenty of documentaries about sporting legends who collected slights and obsessed over proving themselves every day. They cared, and it fueled them.
Trump and Paris Hilton are playing a part for a mass audience who don't know how elites act because they don't know any. Nobody is suggesting that Trump and Paris Hilton don't actually personally care. If they really didn't care, they wouldn't put in the effort. In the years when Paris Hilton was shooting reality shows, she was working a hell of a lot harder than a society heiress needs to. Trump had to keep a president's schedule (a version of it, at least) for four years and came back for more because he wanted to prove he could win again. Being on TV and running for public office are the ultimate forms of caring what other people think. I think the part they play is a part they learned by living it, and is authentic in that sense, but if it was really who they were, instead of being something they act out because they know the masses are impressed by it, we wouldn't know their names.
That isn't true in my experience. Authenticity doesn't require wealth in order to land.
This sounds like what social media mangers are telling their clients - If you are acting stupid/dumb/shameless and attracting people through rage bait, you are being authentic. Lots of prank channels who harass people shamelessly are certainly going for “authentic” reactions.
You might be applying some reverse psychology by claiming shameless == authentic. Does that translate to having shame (in the interpretation of being aware or norms and being considerate to those around) == not authentic?
This "freedom to be themselves" works very well when priviledge is at stake.
Senior management doesn't like it, in my experience. But I agree it makes sense for many interactions.
Not everyone will appreciate your authentic self, that's the inherent risk which requires bravery to overcome. It might also be simply not worth the risk, but either way you should act in a way that you can respect. There are things I wouldn't do because I consider them too risky, but I can still respect myself because I'm the one making the judgement call. It's when I act inauthentically because of the fear, not the risk, that I lose respect for myself and I do my best to avoid it.
The legal fiction that is the corporation is the antithesis of authenticity, and the brand they invest so heavily in, its mask. Having an authentic employee risks removing the mask.
The rise of corpo-culture is a big factor in the loss of authenticity in society.
shamelessness and counter signalling can be seen in another phenominon where the difference between bieng crazy or eccentric(authentic) is a million $
I am a very direct person, and conversations with me often include very personal topics. I've noticed that at the beginning yes, this attracts at least some people who want to have serious conversations, but after some time it simply creates a new culture with new set of rules where you wear a different kind of mask. Everyone claims to crave authenticity, but when actually faced with it, most people back off.
This is perhaps the best articulation on the rise of certain cantankerous people... in social media / politics / <everywhere>
The metaphor of the game is a good one for general understanding (though the Signaling / Counters-signaling paper is a TIL for me)
I was hoping that there would be a "solution" of sorts to tackle / handle this issue of when EVERYBODY seems to use this strategy, but perhaps there isn't one...?
(My own way of dealing with this is to, uh, not read / watch any news / social media... but such ways are quite brittle, of course)
Shame has always been used to establish and maintain social structures and norms.
Is there some sudden rise of it? All my life I've been told by politicians and media corporations and others that I should be ashamed of various things that I think and do and am, as a poorly veiled effort to gain power by controlling people. And before my generation it had been going on a long time, with women wanting independence, black people wanting equal rights, men not wishing to be drafted to wars, gay rights, etc. I think shame and shaming has been a constant, and doesn't arise come from politics or media but human nature.
And I think most upheavals of the status quo have had to overcome this shame barrier. Shaming is probably a very effective psychological tool to conserve social order, but if it's abused or if people want change enough, eventually the lid will pop, and then when there is some critical mass moving away they actually bond together and take pride in being shameless and offending the people trying to shame them, and even might go to exaggerated lengths to do these "shameful" things and rile people up.
So I don't think it is that people or the politicians they vote for just decided they would use it as a strategy. I think it's actually that shame (which they see as coming from an "outgroup") is no longer a viable strategy.
For shame to work we need the whole society to agree that certain behaviors are shameful, otherwise the shamed person can simply change their social circle. In homogeneous societies, like Japan, this still works, at least for Japanese people. But in diverse societies, like most western democracies, you can always find a social circle that will accept you.
Bang on the money. This trend is really just a recognition that compassion, empathy, shame, etc. have been weaponized in service of sociopathic attempts to control people and society.
Too often shaming or labelling viewpoints you disagree with as "hateful" without further elaboration is really just a thin veneer over the absence of any actual position. Intellectual laziness masked with the paper tiger of loaded words and language.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thought-terminating_clich%C3%A...
> I was hoping that there would be a "solution" of sorts to tackle / handle this issue of when EVERYBODY seems to use this strategy, but perhaps there isn't one...?
It’s called government regulation. There’s whole fields of research on how to solve an arbitrarily complicated Prisoner’s Dilemma. A lot of people are allergic to the idea because they don’t want to have limits on their behavior, only on others or on no one at all.
So we get everyone picking the bad square in the Dilemma
>A lot of people are allergic to the idea because they don’t want to have limits on their behavior, only on others or on no one at all.
So are we doomed? if we don't vote in people who can properly regulate this, it seems the dilemma continues. But how does one convince an entire society to stop being so selfish and myopic?
If you want everyone to be able to do what they want without limit, and enough people are choosing a route to destruction, then yes we are doomed.
I have no idea how to convince anyone anymore. Even people who claim to care about things beyond themself immediately round up the wagons the second they have a limitation imposed. Already in this thread there’s someone mocking government regulation with a strawman argument. I’d just find some people you can make a community with and hole up.
The Curtis Yavins, Thiels, and Musks of the world appear to have willed their post democracy state into existence without how much anti democratic sentiment they pull. Gonna have to figure out what their “post constitutional” world is going to look like before anyone has any idea what a good oath forward will be
The path -> oath typo at the end of your post is apropos in a world sliding fast into full on techno feudalism.
The problem is now coming from the top: Trump is the ultimate victory of shamelessness. It evolved like antibiotic resistant MRSA. Which is why demanding a government solution is meaningless.
You're peddling government as a silver bullet. It's not. You're no less ignorant (a much milder word than I want to use) than the people who think various flavors of near-anarchy can magically work fine.
Some people are allergic to your knee jerk silver bullet solution because often times it comes with downsides that are on comparable orders to the original problem, same as every other silver bullet being peddled by every other ideologue.
Shit is complicated and care needs to be taken.
I don't believe I called it a silver bullet. I believe I called it a solution to a specific situation the person I was replying to. You are no less ignorant(also a much milder word than I want to use for yourself) than anyone else who hears "government" and then goes on a tirade about how "gubment bad".
Shit is complicated. That's why leaving it to the random chance of whatever happens in the market happens tends to lead to sub optimal outcomes unless the only metric you care about is efficiency.
I find it comical that you end your post with "care needs to be taken" in response to me calling for government regulation, when government regulation is literally an organization making sure that care is taken.
You can argue on any specific policy points easily, but notice I didn't suggest a concrete action yet, and you still were ready to argue against it because the government was mentioned
Government regulation of shameful behaviour? That's worked out wonderfully in the past.
Yes, it did. Despite all its shortcomings the invention of law has had a pretty obvious positive impact on our civilization.
Instinctive dismissal of government regulation like it could never solve any problem is a bias. Pretty common in tech circles, but still.
European governments have regulations for anti social behaviors that curb some excesses and they haven’t collapsed. So I would agree, they have worked in the past
Haven't most European governments in the last century or so collapsed? Eastern Europe regulated anti-social behaviorsandin a pretty extreme way and the superstructure collapsed directly, but Western Europe as it exists now is what emerged out of the ashes of the last collapse in the 1930s.
I don't think there are many broad lessons to learn beyond aiming for peace and liberty, but "European governments didn't collapse" is hardly a powerful argument. The area is notorious for collapse, it is still in living memory when large chunks of Europe fell apart, sometimes quite comfortably so. It could easily happen again.
Governments once banned interracial relationships and marriage, homosexuality, women working outside the home, divorce, birth control, dancing, drinking etc, on account of contributing to anti-social behaviour. It's true that they haven't collapsed, but I don't think that's because those things were once banned.
If your point is that what was acceptable in the past is now distasteful, then respectfully I do not care.
The fact that the government cannot create a regulation that works for everyone, everywhere, all at once across time and space is not a winning argument for me since that limitation applies to all actors. We go through cycles where we either change what society generally considers "ok" or we discover that something we thought was ok was actually a great evil after some forerunners on moral thought convince enough people of the righteousness of their belief.
That doesn't make regulating bad behavior not ok.
I think you meant the opposite - that what was distasteful in the past is no longer distasteful today.
I think we realised as society that regulating most behaviour, no matter how distasteful we find it, is not a great idea for various reasons - 1. it's subjective, 2. people get tired of prudish cultures and act out in various ways, 3. you end up on the wrong side of history. As a society we're becoming a lot more liberal about letting people do their own thing, as long as they aren't actually hurting others. Playing music out loud is not hurting others, neither is wearing a bikini at the beach, etc.
Of course there are always the hall monitors that want to control other peoples behaviour and they often use the excuse that they're regulating bad behaviour for the sake of society. Thankfully it seems like we are beginning to reject those people and push them out of power.
> I think you meant the opposite - that what was distasteful in the past is no longer distasteful today.
It could be either
> I think we realised as society that regulating most behaviour…
I did not mention anything close to regulating “most” behavior, and I want to call out to you, since you are respectfully laying out your point, that this seems to be a common knee jerk reaction to a large number of people bemoaning any particular issue if I bring up government regulation. That knee jerk reaction specifically being the assumption that being for any government regulations means you are for regulating most or all things.
> Thankfully it seems like we are beginning to reject those people and push them out of power.
It’s only thankful if you prefer the situation. If you are someone who does not want to experience pot smoke and loud music blaring in your ear when someone chooses to do so because they have the freedom to, then maybe you prefer the hall monitor.
I’m not even advocating for one option or the other. This thread started with me pointing out to someone who was upset at people engaging in anti social behavior en masse, that the solution was government regulation.
If you don’t like government regulations in general, or you just think that on net they are a detriment, then the solution is to make peace with the fact that other people are going to use their freedom in a way that you don’t like
Sorry, when I said "most" behaviour I meant it categorically, not quantifiably. As in, most behaviours should not be regulated, not that there are people who want to regulate most or all things.
I don't think the solution to the type of anti-social behaviour described in the article is regulating it. Like I'm not sure how we can make "being Paris Hilton" illegal, unless we do something akin to bringing back Puritanism or something like that. I very much appreciate both the separation of church and state, and also the freedom to live my life how I want even if there are some people who disapprove of it.
> If you don’t like government regulations in general, or you just think that on net they are a detriment, then the solution is to make peace with the fact that other people are going to use their freedom in a way that you don’t like
Yeah I think the lesson is that people need to make peace with the fact that other people have different values and should be free to live their lives the way they want.
Give us some examples.
Hacker news told me to stop posting so fast (i.e. i pissed people off enough to flag) but belatedly,
the UK has A.S.B.O.s, Germany has many laws and regulations against speech and being part of extremist groups. Both countries seem to be doing fine compared to the global competition
Why bother with these commie Europeans, let's start with US, shall we? Ever tried to walk naked in the middle of your city?
What is the reason it's not allowed?
>This is perhaps the best articulation on the rise of certain cantankerous people... in social media / politics / <everywhere>
It's a comforting one but I think it's also a crappy and wrong one. Take a few steps further back and it looks like the pendulum is simply swinging.
It was over the past 10-20yr very fashionable to invest (or waste, depending on your take) a lot of resources softening up what we have to say and how we say it in order to avoid unnecessarily offending people, avoid imprecision, avoid edge cases of meaning and head off nitpickers and detractors who we'd never agree with.
Now, a more "I'll say more or less what I mean with no shits given about edge cases, I'll handle offense after the fact if it's a problem and the haters can go f themselves because I was never going to appease them anyway" style of communication is taking off because it offers a competitive advantage of less resource investment for message delivered.
Keen observation. Canadian white progressives have a pathological inability to state anything directly, take definitive stances on anything, or refrain from ambiguity and equivocation in their speech. You end up with so much noise in the signal from all the hedging, mea culpas, and beating around the bush that it becomes impossible to take them at their word.
All the communications overhead comes from this neurotic desire to sanitize speech of all possible offense, all possible negative implication, and indeed all humanity. The end result is vapid corpo doublespeak, which says... absolutely nothing at all.
The information content of the language of a culture that can be offended by everything tends towards nothing.
A return to formality is the antidote, I’m afraid. As austere and priggish as it may seem. You may see brands and influencers emerging that gain traction with a kind of 1950s post WWII flavor of seriousness and formality. I’m not suggesting social conservatives. More the presentation and packaging of ideas and their purveyors. Formal instead of slovenly, polite vs obnoxious, eloquent vs simplistic, cultured vs vulgar, intellect vs spectacle.
The US isn't that society anymore. My brief trips to Japan and Switzerland suggests they may still be in some ways. But the US is fundamentally demotic and geared towards the lowest common denominator in nearly all aspects of life. Any attempt to reverse that will be a long and slow process, likely doomed to failure.
All ideology. No real substance, just the "facade" of seriousness, detached from any underlying reality thereof. Wouldn't that be even sillier than what we have today?
> I was hoping that there would be a "solution" of sorts to tackle / handle this issue of when EVERYBODY seems to use this strategy, but perhaps there isn't one...?
We're overdue for a major war, which will be reset on how we treat other humans by the end of it. Humans killing humans on an industrial scale between near-peers is followed by periods where people realize that maybe being dicks to each other isn't the ideal state. More cantankerous politicians being elected only increases the odds of war breaking out due to diplomatic failures.
I'm not sure history bears out that major wars lead to peace. WW1 led pretty directly into WW2, and after WW2 there were plenty of conflicts by major powers. That major powers didn't start WW3 (to date) probably has more to do with the potential consequences threatened by nuclear war than an increase in human aversion to widespread industrial war.
There's probably an argument for European countries specifically not wanting to return to the near-constant warfare across its history. But I'm not sure that holds for US v USSR (which came perilously close to open warfare several times), or conflicts elsewhere.
What are you talking about? can you point to a single instance of this happening? 20th century seems to contradict you pretty hard
Germany (WWII), Japan (WWII), and US (Vietnam war) all had pacifist movements spring up in the aftermath of conflict. See also the aftermath of the regimes of Franco, Mussolini,and Ceausescu for domestic resets, just from the 20th century.
All in the 20th century. I attribute the fact that the US and Russia didn't head into a hot war post-WWII to the clear-headedness of witnessing WWII.
I mean, some highly militarized cultures were effectively pacified for at least the next century
japan? pacified by a powerful military occupying them and removing their military completely. i don't see how this makes the point
I was more thinking of a number of European countries, particularly Germany.
Certainly, a nation that for a while was known for its martial culture.
But nowadays, they seem pacifist to a fault, with a crumbling military to boot.
Related. Others?
Shamelessness as a strategy (2019) - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32233451 - July 2022 (214 comments)
Shamelessness as a Strategy (2019) - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25591066 - Dec 2020 (213 comments)
I kind of hated this essay. Not because I really disagree with the conclusions, but it seems to lump all forms of "shamelessness" into the same bucket. I'm fine with "shamelessness" if it's just bucking societal norms and conventions that have often been there so long that we've forgotten what they were ever about in the first place. But I find it deeply, deeply sad when we see so much shamelessness these days that is fundamentally about treating other people like shit because you like the feeling of selfishness.
I also disagree how the author essentially defined "success" as some sort of follower count. I can't remember how I saw this clip, but it was about Lance Bass' wedding to his boyfriend, and he was talking about it with the Kardashian mom. All the Kardashian mom wanted to know about were what the ratings were for their televised wedding, because that's all that mattered to her. I mean, if that's how you want to be "successful", knock yourself the fuck out. I happen to think it's disgusting and the actual opposite of "success", but what do I know, I actually value my relationships for the people I get to know and care about.
Maybe I would like this essay better if it were titled "psychopathy as a strategy". Psychopathy certainly works, at least from the perspective of the psychopath, but it's not exactly something I want to aspire to.
That distinction boils down to thoughtfully considering whether or not an act ought to invoke shame - if you can, in good faith towards others, conclude the act shouldn't be shameful in the first place, then it could hardly be called "shameless" to do it.
Contrast that with acting out specifically because it's shameful, as a social/media tactic instead of a considered moral stance.
You suggest there is an important difference between "just bucking societal norms and conventions" and "treating other people like shit", but in practice all too often the entire difference is whether or not you are one of the people getting screwed over by the behaviour in question.
>It’s important to note that people were dismissive of Paris because validating her playbook would mean admitting that they were playing an inferior game. Everyone else had invested years into optimizing for the most legible version of the rules. They’d look silly if they were to admit she had found a better way of doing things.
I had a co-worker who was addicted to verbally correcting everyone around him, which was super irritating but he seemed just quick enough and just technically correct enough that his formula kind of worked, for him. I would come into work and he would be in a middle of an argument where he insisted some distinction that everyone else that was asinine, he felt was important, and he always got the last word. Everything from pronunciation to definitions of ordinary concepts, and it was visibly important to his self esteem how right he was about all of these things.
At one point he claimed I "didn't understand comedy" because I enjoyed Tim and Eric. If you don't know them, think adult swim style surrealist meta-humor but in lo-fi live action. And my theory for this particular co-worker is that something about what Tim and Eric make fun of must have hit too close to home, too close to his sense of normalcy, which in this case meant seeing them not as comedic personas but as familiar targets to "correct", only to realize they were part of a comedic persona satirizing a certain idea of normalcy, to his initial bafflement and then resentment. Because for a moment he could make a home in that world, and it was a world they were making fun of.
These are all my assumptions of course, but I think they map on to this Paris Hilton analysis, which is that for some reason he needed to see their entire way of doing comedy as not real or not legitimate, because doing so would mean something fundamental about his psychology was something that could be turned into a joke.
Eh, I don't think your analysis of your coworker is correct, or it might be technically correct but missing the point.
Some people are obnoxious because they never learned not to be. It's about empathy, bad habits, and never getting the right feedback. Of course there is accounting for people being different and your goal in life shouldn't be "never bother anybody", but some folks take things too far. In a work context a manager needs to take a dude aside and gently suggest they tone the behavior down. We don't want to be surrounded by either tone police or constant needless corrections.
Those are all things I consider to be familiar generalities. I'm zooming in on a unique dynamic named by the article. And the two are not mutually exclusive, in fact they seem quite obviously compatible.
Doubling down and doubling down on some feeling (or lack of feeling) repeatedly isn't merely a strategy. It is the selling of ones's soul. There's no one left inside by the end of it, just a shell, with no creative power or freedom.
Don't envy them!
I'm shameless but it's not a strategy, it's just that I have no pride (or shame) left. I've been reduced to a pair of eyeballs drifting through space and time.
If I avoid shame, it's to avoid consequences, not to maintain self-image.
If you want to see shamelessness in action, check out this video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=19OaCHOLoxI
(long, but fascinating)
At least in politics, I'd argue that it is not shamelessness. It is a reaction to the fact that our political nobility have sunk so low in terms of achievement and results, that they made a mockery of democracy.
As a reaction, the public makes a mockery of them. As a bonus, getting a politicians that speaks his mind in the common way, is an added spice! Seeing the revulsion in the faces of the political nobility when Trump opens his mouth, gives many satisfaction.
So in politics, this is a sign of health. It is a kind of catharsis. Trump was one of the first in the modern era, and he'll get copy cats, and the strategy will then start to lose its efficiency, but, it will have recalibrated politics away from the previous state where it was a toy for the nobility and commoners were not welcome.
This is also something they fear. That commoners, not part of the nobility, might gain entrance to their domain.
So this is a healthy sign for democracy!
>much like any cult or counterculture, that person’s goal was to attract a following, regardless of who the members are. The disgust of one’s peers doesn’t matter anymore, because that disgust forms the basis for an entirely new community.
Well that's an unfortunately dangerous effect. But thinking about it, it really only takes a few dozen active members to kindle a community, and then they use that to grab in any vulnerable people who they pitch their scam to.
>The concept of a “genius mastermind” is itself outdated, because it assumes that someone needs to be in control. The shameless person is simply a host for a set of ideas, which, like any virus, will continue to propagate as long as there are willing hosts to receive it.
Yeah, fair enough. People just see a catalyst and it will attract a whole swarm of people who will use it to fit their agenda. I suppose it explains a lot of the clshing reports within the US administration this year. Lots of sabetours all trying to do their thing, but they are wrangling a mascot around who they need to keep pleased.
----
As usual, I don't even know how to start to address this. This article was in 2019, and for my country it definitely torpedoed down this decade. It just feels like the few powers left to check it are ransacking the country, and some part of the country is cheering on the destruction of everything. You can't really fight that kind of nihilism.
Shamelessness works great with our attention economy. Say some real divisive stuff, get eyeballs, monetize.
The latest South Park (Season 27, Episode 2) seems to be related or tangentially related
A student is on social media saying things that upset people solely to make money
The implicit assumption of this article is that ideas approved by current members of community are good and ones expressed by the "shameless" outsider are bad. This would, for example, automatically invalidate Pride movement without considering merits of it's goals. It would be more fair to say that regardless of merit of ideas, stating them directly and forcefully despite community pushback can be a valid strategy to attract new members or shift Overton window.
Yes - the author is biased against those behaviours and erroneously classifies it as "shamelessness" but it's really just authenticity.
I don't think that's the implicit assumption. She ends with:
> But what I do know is when I see my peers rolling their eyes at someone or deriding them for being “shameless”, there’s a good chance that, instead of writing them off, we should examine their actions a bit more closely.
What about Donald Trump shamelessly bragging about sexual assault? Incidentally he even has "shame" and is trying to disassociate himself from Epstein - so, it seems he still needs some social acceptance, but that's a curious point about LGBTQ and shame, because many cultures have made these things something bad and to be ashamed about - although I wonder where they've come from, homosexuality wasn't a big deal in Ancient Greece, and they were even the kind where adult men had relations with adolescent boys.
Shamelessness is the guiding mantra in politics too, I guess the author wanted to stay away from the most obvious and egregious example. I don’t think we will be able to turn the tide here though. The hustle culture of Silicon Valley tried to draw a fine line for a while but it was never going to last. As a society we are an attention economy and that only values shamelessness, not ethics and morals.
> The “establishment” mistakenly assumes that a shameless person wants the approval of their community, when it turns out that, much like any cult or counterculture, that person’s goal was to attract a following, regardless of who the members are. The disgust of one’s peers doesn’t matter anymore, because that disgust forms the basis for an entirely new community.
This is a great point, and we can push it further. Perhaps the more powerful effect is that once the supporting fringe communities grow large and influential enough, the original establishment will move over to the shameless person’s camp. This happens swiftly, like dominoes falling, because the establishment’s opposition was actually not ideological to begin with but rather based on perception of the most socially acceptable / financially beneficial position at every moment.
the political takes here couldn't be more off. wow.
Unaccounted for: the failure scenario.
You had integrity, put in the work, and failed. Life is brutal - anyone can respect your effort.
You tried to be the next Paris, and failed. You look like a fucking clown.
There's some survivor bias. But like a virus, the next strain will be stronger and more potent from those survivors.
Very few people in 2004 could pull off the Paris. It's a lot easier in 2024.
The real underlying trend is the great shift in what’s good “taste” and Overton window
Well who cares about looking like a clown, considering there’s millions of them on LinkedIn and TikTok. Shame is diluted every day and no one cares
> Well who cares about looking like a clown
A lot of people, almost instinctively, and for good reason.
Playing devil’s advocate, but “clown” is subjective and relative, which means the most serious people are sometimes clowns unbeknownst to them lol
There's no news like bad news.
Weird contradiction in the article - it warns us not to complacently write off those who appear shameless… but also:
> any major politician sticking to a pre-2016 playbook today is almost certainly not going to win.
I'm not sure where you see a contradiction. Could you explain it to me? As I see it, the author claims that those who appear shameless are increasingly successful in today's day and age. The second statement is a prediction that basically follows from that and I feel like the prediction is holding up.
What I meant was that on the one hand the article says that we shouldn’t underestimate the shameless. On the other hand it says that the person who employed shamelessness in the first election likely won’t win again (thereby underestimating the shameless).
It says the opposite to me. It's saying shamelessness won. And if you don't be shameless but instead stick to pre-2016 techniques you'll lose. To win you have to be shameless.
Shamelessly authentic might be what is causing the increasingly success now days.
Doubt that shamelessly corrupt will have the same effect.
Nigerian here.
> Shamelessly authentic might be what is causing the increasingly success now days.
I 100% agree with this. It's hard to pull off; I've just the one example[0]. Also this buttresses:
> Under open borders, sanctions will backfire, because they just serve as a signaling boost for the transgressor, attracting outsiders who resonate with that person’s message. What’s meant to be punishment instead becomes a flare shot straight into the night sky.
Politics was in this weird stasis. The shameless showman broke the script where some evolution of 1960s Kennedy v. Nixon was displaced by whatever you call this era.
Vice President Quayle was mocked endlessly for spelling the word potato incorrectly. Now we have a dude who can barely string a sentence together.
My read of "pre-2016 playbook" was referring to someone using a traditional campaign like Hillary (rather than Trump using his pre-2016 strategy), and that they were saying Trump changed the entire game in 2016 so that shameless strategies would be the winning strategy going forward. So I don't see a contradiction.
I think the shamelessness from Paris Hilton of a different kind than the shamelessness of the 2016 candidate. The former is of the "give them something to hate/gawk at/despise" whereas the latter is a byproduct (first), and results in (second), the breakdown of institutions. When our institutions can't be trusted, the advantage that we thought we were supposed to gain from playing by their rules (stability, fairness, equality) don't seem like they outweigh the disadvantages (waiting and thinking, instead of acting immediately). So we turn to greed and tribalism, and we like to see that legitimized by our role models.
It's another pseudo intellectual article to thinly criticize "the other side in US politics" claiming populism and shamelessness.
The mafia/werewolf example is certainly a bad analogy and maybe there'd be more consequences to labeling if labeling wasn't used all the time as a political maneuver to destroy an opponent.
It's also ridiculously all over the place claiming Paris Hilton somehow popularized being out there. In the US, Fame and "larger than life" attitudes have always been successful provided they come together with money or power.
The person who popularized "famous for being famous" was Angelyne.[1] Her boyfriend had a display printing business in LA, and, in 1984, arranged for billboards in LA, with just Angelyne and her picture. By 1995, over 200 billboards. She wasn't a movie star. Or a TV star. She'd done some singing. Yet she became famous.
The article is way off base. Dorsey's playbook, if it even exists, isn't something to be ashamed of, especially in the context of Silicon Valley culture. Has the author never heard of Burning Man (obviously, she has and might have been more than once)? Zuck and Dorsey are two of the most common archetypes among tech company founders: the super nerd who only thinks about technology, and then money, and power, and the more romantic nerd, who seems to have some spiritual goals that technology only partially fulfills.
A more curious case, although it became prominent years after this post was published, is that of the Bidens. Their son Hunter was a big liability, and even the most staunch Democrats, if they thought about it outside the context of the cultural battle between right and left, would have admitted it. But by all accounts, the whole issue became entangled in the cultural battle between left and right, and people took sides depending on where their vote was going.
The same thing happened in Italy with Berlusconi and his interest in younger women whom he paid to have sex with him. He neither explained nor justified his behavior much (just dinner with friends, he said: can I relax the way I want after long days of work?), and the subject became one of many that his friends and enemies discussed daily.
Zelensky allowed himself and his wife to appear in what I consider to be an incredibly misguided and glamorous photo shoot published in Vanity Fair, a shameless strategy, but he had cover from criticism, as any criticism of the photo shoot would have been interpreted as openly siding with Putin.
But shamelessness doesn’t always save you. Strauss-Kahn, a prominent figure in French and European politics up until some 15-20 years ago, failed to weather the storm, but not because of his infidelity or his passion for escorts, but because he, a socialist, had treated some immigrants and low-status people with vicious contempt (in addition to allegations of sexual misconduct). If it had been just about the escorts or vanilla misconduct, the shameless strategy would probably have worked (after all, who doesn't like escorts?).
Although it is always a matter of circumstances, I believe that the shameless strategy works for people of very low status, who do not fear criticism because they have little to lose, or for those of high status, especially when they manage to make it seem normal, that it has always been done, but that it has now become a problem because their enemies want to make it so, for political, financial, or cultural reasons. For mid-level managers in the tech industry, on average, it doesn't work very well.
This stuff is an art. Andrew Cuomo was this weird sex symbol for awhile. Eventually people got sick of him, and the media people just pile on.
It's all about the situation and depends a lot on personality, the real one, not the facade, on intangibles (“aura”) and on never showing any weakness or offering apologies.
Trump's strategy works because it/he has all the elements to do so. Has he ever offered apologies? Never. He always moves forward: the past is the past. From an appearance standpoint, he offers an easy target for his rivals. But why hasn't anyone hit him, or when they have, why have they missed the mark? Because it's not in their nature, it is not them, they would not be consistent, it would be a one-off, not a strategy, but just an expedient tactic.
> But why hasn't anyone hit him, or when they have, why have they missed the mark? Because it's not in their nature, it is not them, they would not be consistent, it would be a one-off, not a strategy, but just an expedient tactic.
And that is called natural selection.
I sort of think that Gavin Newsom has been hitting him recently, but I agree it seems to work because it is very much in his character the strategy that is being used.
Trump is a good bully. His fakeness is real.
Remember the Star Trek with the alternate universe where bad Spock had a beard? Trump is like evil Bill Clinton. He has a charisma and he feels your pain, but instead of trying to find a solution, he tells you everyone is stupid and he will help you get retribution.
Would another way of saying this be that while high expectation it's also high variance?
In the context of high-status individuals, the reactive shameless strategy (so what?) has recently proven successful.
It is more difficult to determine whether a shameless proactive strategy, such as Trump's (harshly criticizing others' physical appearance, openly bullying less powerful peers) would work for others. It has proven to be unexpectedly successful for him. However, it is consistent with his personality. A similar strategy might not work for Macron, given the stark gap between his traditionally presidential demeanor and a Trump-like shameless political and personal strategy.
>Zelensky allowed himself and his wife to appear in what I consider to be an incredibly misguided and glamorous photo shoot published in Vanity Fair
following older narratives of gender dynamics it would commonly be thought that the wife wanted it, because hey, Vanity Fair! and got the husband to go along.
Who knows who wanted what, but the leader of a nation at war showing up at any official event in casual clothes to show his solidarity with the troops and then posing for a glamorous photo shoot like any Hollywood celebrity is so ridiculous that it looks like a parody.
I am baffled that this serious misstep has been forgotten so quickly, but as I wrote in another comment, what you do plays a secondary role in how you are perceived; the main role is to show where you stand, whether that stand is supported by actions or not. Declare yourself anti-fascist, and any criticism of you and your policies will be interpreted as fascist.
I didn't follow Dorsey. I actually hate it when the bosses above me add their personal activities to their posts. The worst was one posting about a business trip halfway around the world while the company had effectively banned all business related travel. In general though, I don't want to hear about how great life is when you're making muliple X more than me. At least not from my bosses.
You may not like him (I have no opinion of him), but that is not the point I was making.
The spiritually inclined tech founder is a common archetype/personality of the post-2000 tech boom, and I found the point the article was making, i.e. that his was a shameless strategy, quite off base.
It is important to differentiate between a way of being (e.g., introvert/extrovert, more or less affected by criticism), a goal, a strategy, and a tactic. An excellent read for those topics is "Winners", by Alastair Campbell, which surprisingly few people in tech, and I dare to say in politics too, have read.
> Increasingly, I think the “shameless” approach is becoming a dominant strategy today. It was first popularized in modern canon by Paris Hilton, who played the “dumb blonde heiress” stereotype so smoothly that everyone assumed she really was as stupid as she seemed.
This seems wildly unsupported. I lived through that era, and admittedly I wasn't breathlessly tuned into the latest celebrity gossip, but from a sort of second hand (or third or fourth) she seemed to say and do the exact same things as any other rich young socialite.
She went to parties with other celebs, had her fashiom choices reported on and occasionally said something mildly vapid.
The biggest moment, of course, was her ex-boyfriend selling their sex tape, but she wasn't the first or the last person to have someone publish private material.
Is the argument that she was the first woman to not commit suicide when that happened and there for she's shameless?
Or just that she was famous despite acting like an average wealthy child and that made people real mad?
It seems like a truly Reed Richards level stretch to get to someone like Trump who says and does a bunch of awful things most people thought were off limits for a politician and was rewarded by a bunch of awful people.
I’m guessing he’s more referring to the television show with Nicole Ritchie where they both acted shamelessly stupid for the attention.
I supposed it’s possible she’s really as dumb as she portrayed on her “reality” tv show, but I find it extremely unlikely given the money and education.
You know, that's fair, I completely forgot that show even existed. I guess I sort of categorize it as "a tv show" and thus fictional.